JkbWorld

If you remember all the way back to May, we posted the Clam or Be Damned!! thread, that covered the trip that Paula, Clark and I took up to Ocean Shores to dig Razor Clams on one of the year’s lowest tides.  We all limited out on both days and had a ton of Razor Clams in the freezer.  Well, this past weekend was windy and cool, so I made some clam chowder with a few.

Having never made Clam Chowder before, and not really following a particular recipe, just making it up as I went along, I was very happy with the way it turned out.  Hopefully, you’re looking at it and salivating, but if you’re not, you should be, because it was really delicious!  Read on…

The last time we cooked some of our Razors, we found that Paula was horrifically allergic to Domoic Acid, which is a naturally-occurring toxin in some Pacific Coast shellfish, Razor Clams, especially.  So, I’ll have to eat all the rest eventually, and as much as I like fried Razor Clams, I don’t think I could eat a whole pack without help, so some Clam Chowder sounded like a pretty good idea.  Some people may think it is a sin of some sort to make Clam Chowder out of Razor Clams, but I’ve had it before at Paula’s uncle’s house, and it was really good.  It seemed that the Razor Clams were a much nicer clam flavor than some others, and may be better fried than others, but it worked fine for chowder, as you’ll soon find out.

I’ve tried a few different kinds of clam chowder before (Paula and I taste-tested chowder through New England during the Acadia trip) and know what kinds of stuff I like and what kinds I don’t.  I like corn and bacon in the clam chowder, and don’t really like celery.  In addition, Paula’s uncle and Clark talked about how to make it as well, so between them and a few “reality check” lookups online and in a cookbook or two, I set out to make my own Razor Clam Chowder:

Here are the ingredients:

• 4 or 5 strips of bacon
• 1 medium sized sweet onion (Walla Walla) chopped
• 2 gold potatoes chopped
• 1 can of Santiam corn–or regular canned corn, I just like that kind
• About 6 Razor Clams
• About half a pint carton of half and half.
• About a handful of flour
• Oyster Crackers

Use scissors to cut up bacon into lots of little squares.  Fry bacon until it is cooked.  Dump chopped up onion into bacon and let it sautee until its soft.  Next dump the potatoes in and sautee them for a few minutes, too.  Then dump your corn into the mix (include corn water).  If you froze your Razor Clams in fresh water, go ahead and dump the clam water in, too.  Boil it until the chopped up potatoes are no longer crunchy–add a little water if it starts getting low (the corn water was almost enough for me), but I like it chunky and less watery.  Use scissors to chop up the Razor Clams and then dump them in, too.  Put in about half a pint of half and half and let it get up to a boil and then let it simmer for about 20 minutes.  Taste a piece of clam and if it tastes done, it’s done, otherwise, go for longer.  I mixed in some flour, about a handful, which thickened it up nicely.  Finally, add Oyster Crackers and mix well.  Bon Appetit and Enjoy!

If you try to make Clam Chowder using the recipe above, post a comment and let me know how it turned out for you!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 1:11 am and is filed under Fishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.